Dan Di Dio, senior VP with Mainframe Entertainment in L.A., says his company is shaping a new business strategy. A new Mainframe kids show, Scary Godmother, doesn’t have the muscle to get itself on air in North America, despite that company’s entirely solid North American track record. But there’s real interest in the property in Europe, and so Mainframe has gone out and found new partners for its first-ever European (France) treaty coproduction.

Producers across the county face similar difficulties financing their programs.

Doing business with the richest market in the world is still the brass ring and best asset for the Canadian production industry. But the U.S. market is increasingly concentrated. Consider the children’s program sector where Canada has built an enviable international reputation. It will soon become very difficult cracking the nut that is, to take one example, Disney/Fox Kids or ABC children’s or however it ultimately plays out. The first instinct will be to rationalize, better exploit in-house production capacity and tremendous program libraries. Third-party suppliers, like our industry, know they can do good shows, but that may take some time for the big U.S. programmers to figure out. In the short run, the starker truth is that independently produced shows, wherever they originate, will be the sticking place where the networks and studios balance their budgets.

The production industry in Canada needs to continue to look for ways to promote coproduction and content program presales.

‘I think Canada is the best potential coproduction partner for anybody,’ says Andy Thomson, executive VP television production at Alliance Atlantis, and responsible for AAC Fact.

Because of the Canadian content quota system, broadcasters are obliged to pay out licence fees over and above their market value. This system, again under attack, adds multiple value to coproductions, compared to acquisitions, and so encourages foreign producers to contemplate partnering with Canadians. Add to these multiples – national program status in the foreign coproduction territory(ies) and incentive benefits like the U.K. sale and leaseback, as well as our well-considered production tax credits – and we arrive at markets like MIPCOM ready to make real creative and financing contributions to international programs.

The industry needs a range of financing tools to compete internationally, beyond the support of oversubscribed agencies like Telefilm Canada and the Canadian Television Fund.

This is hardly the time to sell out. The industry should renew its push for a viable space for Canadian product in films, TV and on the Internet.

How do we become better partners with nothing in our hands? The Canadian broadcasting system is not a closed system. Huge profits flow from our market to the U.S. film and TV industry, and rightly so – those shows work, but the Canadian incentives in no way impede the best efforts of our highly skilled technical and production service industry. Yes, government is reviewing the Broadcasting Act and regulatory scope of the CRTC. And so it’s time to reaffirm support for our cultural industries and great future.

Leo Rice-Barker

Montreal Bureau Chief